Hacker News Reader

Comment by williamDafoe | Hacker News Reader

PG&E is the worst power company in the western hemisphere. First in 2000 they had massive power outages due to early deregulation which led to the impeachment of governor Gray Davis. In 2017 the company killed thousands of customers and billions in property because of fires they caused! Now in 2019 they are doing massive shutdowns and directly killing their customers on life support! We have the highest prices (.22c a kilowatt hour) despite having lots of of green power generators who get half that rate based on a crooked "wholesale" reimbursement scheme! California could do better with any 3rd world power company, PG&E is always horribly run ..

View on HN

PG&E is a terrible company, but spewing a bunch of nonsense hyperbole isn't helpful.

Someone else pointed out that your statements about deaths are false. So I'll point out that California's electricity isn't 22¢/kWh. The California average is 16.06¢.

https://www.eia.gov/electricity/state/

States that have it worse:

  Hawaii: 26.05¢
  Alaska: 19.10¢
  Connecticut: 17.55¢
  Massachusetts: 17.12¢
  Rhode Island: 16.42¢
  New Hampshire: 16.17¢

It's about 25¢/kwh in NYC! yay con edison! most expensive electricity that doesn't have to be shipped in by boat.

The California average is 16.06¢.

PG&E doesn't serve all of California. While we're being pedantic, PG&E's (non-low-income) rates are generally closer to $0.20-$0.30 per kWh. Their rates are a bit too complex to easily summarize but during peak hours you are pretty much guaranteed to be paying more than $0.20/kWh (and in many cases above $0.25/kWh). Off-peak rates are all above $0.12/kWh, generally more than $0.16/kWh.

https://www.pge.com/tariffs/electric.shtml

> California average is 16.06¢

Not sure how they come up with such a number, but California is large and has many electricity providers.

But for PG&E in the Bay Area, let me quote from my PG&E electric bill here in hand:

Daytime: $0.53476 (delivery) + $0.25069 (generation) = $0.785/kWh

Part-peak: $0.28917 (delivery) + $0.10643 (generation) = $0.396/kWh

Night: $0.13578 (delivery) + $0.03968 (generation) = $0.175/kWh

The cheapest rate is 17.5 cents per kWh, that is late at night (currently after 11pm, soon to be changed to be after midnight).

Daytime rate is 78.5 cents per kWh! This is PG&E in the Bay Area.

Oof, that's awful. I just got a bill recently here in seattle and got a $10.67 base charge and an additional $0.0902 charge per KWH for a total price of $48.50 dollars for 415 KWHs used in a 68 day period.

> In 2017 the company killed thousands of customers

47, not "thousands", assuming all the 2017 wildfire deaths were attributable to PG&E.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_California_wildfires

In addition to the forty-odd folks killed in 2017, PG&E started the the Camp Fire (2018) where 85 people died, one is still missing, and 17 were injured. Who knows how many will get sick from the chemicals leeching out of the plastic water infrastructure and into the water itself.

In 2015, PG&E only killed two people (Butte Fire).

PG&E also poisoned a few hundred in Hinkley (the town Erin Brockovich made famous). PG&E killed another 8 in San Bruno (and injured 58.

Oh gosh, let's not forget the Sierra Fire of 1994.

https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/PG-E-Guilty-In-1994-Sier...

Edit: Oh gosh, downvotes. Do you guys really need links to all the blood on PG&E's hands?

https://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/10160680-181/the-camp-fir...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tubbs_Fire

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butte_Fire

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Bruno_pipeline_explosion

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Fire_(2018)

The Tubbs Fire was probably not caused by PG&E equipment.

The Tubbs Fire was probably not caused by PG&E equipment.

You're right, and if you take a look at what I wrote I did not mention the Tubbs Fire. Plenty of folks have died at the hands of PG&E, and I mistakenly added a link to it however.

Who are the 2nd and 3rd worst power companies in the western hemisphere? Whenever someone says something is "the worst" or "the best" I wonder how much due diligence they've actually performed to compare it to the alternatives. If you're going to claim something is the worst, surely you should know several others and be able to say why PG&E is worse than them.

I mean, just off the top of my head, I'd put Venezuela's power company as worse than PG&E. More people have died from their power problems than from PG&E's. Just in March of 2019, the entire country was without power for 10 days.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Venezuelan_blackouts

I'm not sure that's down to Venezuela's power companies. That's right about when the US was trying to coup their government, right? Stuxnet's origin story can tell us a bit about what kinds of sabotage they pull.

I remember the rolling blackouts in 2000; this was Enron's doing, but enabled by deregulation. PG&E was the victim.

What should PG&E do now? California is a leader on climate change and needs strong statewise utilities as partners.

Gray Davis lost a recall election, was not impeached.

Schwarzenegger won in the replacement election, in a three way race with 48% of the vote.

2003 California gubernatorial recall election

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_gubernatorial_recal...

Not the worst. I was recently in Juticalpa, Honduras, and we did not have light for three days more or less. It's a capital of a state. Same thing in Rio Dulce, Guatemala: I was looking for candles since many shops ran out of batteries.

ERCOT prices in August were $9/kWH for several hours of the month, and the average rate for my load zone was well over $1/kWH. Are you sure $0.22/kWH is the “highest prices”?

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-13/texas-pow...

Davis was recalled by voters, not impeached.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com